The Kingdom of God!
Chapter One In order for you to understand the Kingdom of God, you must
understand what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam disobeyed God. The
Lord had told Adam in Gen. 2:27-28, "So, God created man
in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth." God gave them
authority over everything that moves on the earth! Unfortunately, when they disobeyed
God and obeyed Satan, they gave him the authority to rule the earth. He had the
legal right to rule as he pleased on this earth. Paul said in Rom. 6:16, (NIV) "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as
obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, whether you are slaves to
sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Jesus defeated the devil on the cross, however, we, as the body of
Christ, the Church, must learn to go
before the courts of heaven and present God's word to him and come into
agreement with what the word says to release the Lord's will for our nation and
all the nations of the earth. By doing so we give the Lord the legal authority
to fulfill His purpose on this earth. God is a judge and will only operate His
will under legal terms. This is so Satan can have no accusations against Him or
us in the courts of Heaven.
Satan has the right to come before the courts of heaven and make his
accusations against us. In the book of Job we see the
sons of God coming before the courts of heaven to present themselves and Satan
came with them! I will talk about the courts of the Kingdom of God as soon as I
lay the foundation of the Kingdom of God.
The Old Testament ends on a note of expectation
that the return of Elijah the prophet and that he would soften the hearts of
the people to obey the Law of Moses in conformity with Israel's calling as
God's holy nation (Mal. 4:4-6). However, four hundred long years had passed
since Israel has heard any word from God. During this time, the Persians, the
Greeks and the Romans all ruled over Israel in Palestine. The apocryphal books
were written and the apocalyptic prophets preached. But no authentic
prophet arose to bring a good word from God.
Finally, the deafening silence was shattered by the strong
voice of John the Baptist the promised forerunner of Messiah
who was also the new Elijah (Matt. 3:3; 11:14; Mark 1:2-3; 9:13; Luke 3:4-6).
John the Baptist made this startling, but exciting announcement: "Repent, for
the Kingdom of Heaven is
at hand" (Matt. 3:2)!
At long last, it would seem to the people that God was
heard from again and He was about to do something new! Indeed, He was! What He
was about to do was to fulfill the redemptive hope of the Old Testament through
the inauguration of the Kingdom of God in the person of His
own virgin-born Son, Jesus Christ. The time had finally come. The offspring of
a woman who would bring redemption to all of God's creation was about to be
revealed. The covenants of promise were about to be fulfilled. God's redeeming
mystery was about to be shown to the world! This is what the story of Jesus and
the New Testament is all about! At the heart of this story is the Kingdom of
God.
Matt. 3:1-2 says,
In those days came John the
Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, And saying, Repent ye: for the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
"Now after
John was put in prison, Jesus
came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God saying,
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe
the gospel.
Matthew uses the
term, Kingdom of Heaven and Mark uses the term, Kingdom of God. Is there a
difference between these two terms or are they the same? Technically there is;
however, for the purpose of our discussion I am going to use the term, Kingdom
of God. The difference is that the Kingdom of God indicates His universal
Kingdom and the term, Kingdom of Heaven indicates His Kingdom of the specific
place called Heaven.
In this study, I want to discuss what
the Kingdom of God is and where it is located. There is confusion in the
religious world about the Kingdom of God. On the one hand it is taught that the
Kingdom of God is here now and when Jesus returns again, he will set up His
Kingdom here on this earth.
John the Baptist and Jesus both taught
that the Kingdom of God was at hand. This simply meant that the Kingdom of God
was ready to be revealed. It was the time for the Kingdom of God to come into
existence. When Jesus heard that John was cast into prison, He began to preach
and teach the people about the Kingdom of God.
It will help you to understand this from
the standpoint of the people of that day. It had been 400 years since a prophet
had been heard in the Jewish nation and now there comes this strange man from
out of the wilderness proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is coming and for
everyone to repent and be baptized. This caused a stir in all of Judea among
the people. Mark 1:4-8 says,
John did baptize
in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of
sins. And there went
out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all
baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And
John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his
loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; And preached, saying, "There
comes one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy
to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost.
Bible scholars agree that the Kingdom of God was the central
message of Jesus.
For example, the gospel of Mark introduces Jesus
and His mission with these words in Mark 1:13-14,
"Now after
John was put in prison, Jesus
came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and
believe the gospel" Matthew's summary of Jesus' ministry is similar and he says
in Matt. 4:23, "And
Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom
and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people"
Luke also makes this statement about Jesus in Luke 4:43,
"But He [Jesus] said to them, "I must
preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose"
These three verses are unanimous in revealing the Kingdom
of God was at the heart of Jesus purpose on earth.
Unfortunately, however, scholarly accord ends here. There
is little if any agreement about what the Kingdom is or how it
should be defined. There is not much understanding about its identity among the
rank and file in our churches either. Obviously, there is not much agreement
or clarity these days about the Biblical concept of the Kingdom. In order
to shed some light on this subject, let's do our best to see how the Bible
answers several important questions about the definition, timing, and nature of
this crucial theme.
What is the Kingdom of God?
The Hebrew word for kingdom is malkut and its Greek
counterpart is basileia. Both terms primarily mean 'rule'
or 'reign.' Only secondarily do they denote a realm, sphere,
or territory over which a rule or reign is exercised. Both terms have a dynamic
or active meaning, and refer to the exercise of God's power,
dominion, or sovereignty.
This is clear in the Old Testament,
particularly in the poetry of the Psalms where parallel lines clarify what the
term 'kingdom' means. For example, Psalm 22:28 says, "For the kingdom
is the Lord's, and He rules over all." Similarly, Psalm 103:19 states,
"The Lord has established His throne [kingdom] in the heavens, and His
sovereignty rules over all." Psalm 145:11 declares, "They shall speak
of the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy power." Here
kingdom is associated with the ideas of God's rule, sovereignty, and power.
The New Testament term means the same
thing. When we pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on
earth, as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10)," we are asking God to exert His
authority in the world so that His purposes are achieved. In Colossians 1:13,
Paul teaches that redemption amounts to an exchange of rulers over our lives,
stating that God has delivered us believers "from the authority of
darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son."
Thus, the NT nuance for kingdom in these verses connect it
with the exertion of God's will, the act of ruling or
reigning, the exercise of authority.
In Luke 17: 20-21 Jesus had been questioned by the
Pharisees as to when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said,
"The kingdom of
God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you!"
This statement came as
quite a shock to the Jewish people who heard this because their teachers had
told them that when the Messiah came, He would set up His Kingdom here on this physical
earth and set them free from the tyrannical rule of Rome. They were not ready
to hear the truth about the Kingdom of God and what it was all about because
they had been taught just the opposite by their priest. They were looking for a
literal physical kingdom that would put them in the position of ruling the earth .
The preaching and teaching that Jesus was
talking to them about was foreign to their way of thinking. Their prophet
Isaiah had told them in Is. 55:7-9,
"Let the wicked forsake his way, and
the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will
have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts."
This is not much different than what many of our churches are
teaching us today. Most churches have bought into the theory of the Rapture
that has come about in the last 200 or so years. What most Christian preachers
and teachers have over looked is what Paul had to say about understanding the
things that have been written and inspired by the Holy Spirit. He said in 1
Cor. 2:11-14,
"For what man knows the things of
a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God know
no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God.
Which things also we
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy
Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But
the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned."
Let me take a moment to take a closer look
at what Paul was saying here before we go on. A few short years after the last
apostle died, the Church gradually drifted away from depending on the Spirit of
the Lord to lead and guide them eventually digressing to the point of denying
the gift of the Holy Spirit that Peter said that all who believed and were
baptized would receive. (Acts 2:38)
The church that I grew up in told me that
we didn't need the baptism of the Holy Spirit today because we now have the
Bible in written form and all we need to do is read it and do what it tells us
to do. Well, this sounds good until you begin to do a little studying about
early church history and find out that it wasn't until around 1850 that the
first Bible was printed. What did the people do that lived all those years
after the apostles died until the Bible was in book form?
Jesus told His disciples on the night that
He was betrayed in John 14:19-21,
"Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you
will see me: because I live, you shall live also. At that day you shall know that I am in my
Father, and you in me, and I in you. He that has my commandments,
and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will
love him, and will manifest (reveal) myself to him."
He then told them in verse 23,
"If a man
loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him."
Look, I didn't say these words and make
these promises. Jesus did! The question is, "Do you believe Him? Do you believe
that God lives and dwells within you? Do you love the Lord and do you keep His
commandments?" If you do this, He lives within you! Where does the Lord live in
you? Paul said in 1 Cor. 3:16,
"Know you not that you are the temple of God,
and that the
Spirit of God dwells in you?"
Also, in 1 Cor. 6:17,
"But he that
is joined unto the Lord is one spirit
."
The Spirit of the Lord dwells within your
spirit. You are spirit! You don't have a spirit, you are spirit. Your body will
return to the earth it was made of and you will return to your Father who gave
you life. Your Heavenly Father is Spirit and you have been born of Him and that
makes you spirit. Jesus said in John 6:63,
"It
is the spirit that quickens;(or gives life) the flesh profits nothing: the words that
I speak unto you, they
are spirit
, and they are life.
But there are some of you that don't
believe!
That is about as plain as you can state
something and yet there are still Christians today that don't believe God
dwells within them. They have very little awareness of God inspiring them with
the answer to the many problems they face in this life! This is largely due to
the lack of leadership in the Church. There has been so much teaching on keeping
the letter of the Law and very little on being led by the Spirit of the Lord.
Paul said in Romans 8:1-17,
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin
and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do
mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life
and peace. Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. So, then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit
of God dwells in you.
Now if any man has not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but
the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of
him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken (make
alive) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live
after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if
you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then
heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer
with him, that
we may be also glorified together."
Jesus told His disciples in John 14:18-20,
"I will
not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the
world will see me no more; but you will see me: because I live, you shall live
also. At that day ye
shall know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I
am in you."
The great Apostle Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13,
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For
it is God which works in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
These are just a few of the many
scriptures that bear witness that the Spirit of the Lord dwells within us. It
would then stand to reason that this being true the Kingdom of God is where He
dwells and therefore the Kingdom of God is within His people. This was God's
plan from the very beginning. In Gen. 1:26-28 God said,
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps
upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them,
and God said unto them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
Through out the Bible God gives insight as
to where His Kingdom will be revealed. In Jer. 31:31-34 and Heb. 8:8-12 God said,
"Behold, the
days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of
Israel and with the House of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I
made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I
regarded them not, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I
will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws into their
mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from
the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their
sins and their iniquities will I remember no more!".
The Apostle Paul understood this great
mystery and stated it in Col. 1:26-27,
"Even the mystery which has been hid
from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the
riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles; which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory:"
What have we just learned? The Kingdom of God is a Spiritual Kingdom and not
a physical kingdom. In order to become a resident of this Kingdom, you must be
born again! Our heavenly Father is the sovereign ruler of the greatest Kingdom
in the entire universe. The Kingdom is not a congregation; it's a real government
with a king, (Jesus), a country (heaven), a military (angels), and citizens. Like
all legitimate governments, the Kingdom of God has a judicial branch.
I will have a lot to share with you about the courts of Heaven in the following Chapters.